Thursday, October 4, 2012

Network Culture

After
reading Terranova’s Network Culture, I was struck with a question of space and
time, which were the main aspects that were dealt in Anderson’s Imagined
Communities. In Terranova’s book, she talks about how “cyberspace” is creating
new sense of time and space, rather than being the virtual reality. A quote
from the book says, “the contemporary debate has shifted onto the terrain of
globalization…now the image is that of a common space of information flows in
which the political and cultural stakes of globalization are played out.”(42)
The terrain and common space that she refers to here is the network. With dynamic
topological formation and its sense of “real time” that happens simultaneously,
informational milieu, what we call ‘cyberspace’, generate unprecedented sensation
of creating global network that gives each one of us the sense of belonging. To
simply put, we are being physically and electronically connected and being
placed by the network. Our email address, Facebook pages, and IP addresses give
us a sense of where we are. This emergence of physical and electronic space
generates new effect.

“ The relationship between communication and community, which
within modernity was mostly confined to the boundaries of the nation, is today
problematized by a kind of geographical dispersion. Mediated communities are no
longer mostly enclosed by national boundaries, but increasingly materialize at
the intersection of manifold connections… The emergence of a global and
differentiated communication matrix has also foregrounded the power of
communication to undo bonds, rather than simply reinforce them- a feature that
is particularly troubling for the modern association between communication and
community. “ (145)

A film ‘Ai
Wei Wei: Never Sorry’, which was filmed in China by a Brown alum, Alison
Klayman, to show the artist Ai Wei Wei’s life and how his arts has such a powerful
impact on Chinese citizens and their viewpoints of the politics and blur the boundaries
of arts and politics, is an example of today’s global village which is held by
a “single communication infrastructure.” Ai Wei Wei is an international artist
who posts provocative and direct messages and art works on social media
platforms- the place where people around the world can come together and voice
their opinions no matter where they are. It’s not only residents of China, but many
Chinese and non-Chinese living around the world who are becoming a part of this
invisible village that is built upon one man’s idea. He may be in China typing
his thoughts on keyboard, but the next minute there will be hundreds and
thousands of people around the globe reading his messages. But I guess my point
is, what exactly are we trying to decipher here? What are we trying to make
sense of these homogeneous empty time? I understand that we are being part of a global village and
the globalization is taking over our world, but what are the foundational
ideologies that we are trying to decompose? And what makes it so important? How
can we utilize this medium at the same time? What are the advantages and
disadvantages? What can we do about this phenomenon? I guess I have too many
questions to ask, and too little knowledge to answer for myself.